4 March 2008 - Back in the game!

I am back in the game! Yee haa!

It has been a tough couple of weeks for me, and I have lived in between bouts of sickness brought on no doubt by general fatigue. Since Khartoum, I have been worried that I was simply not strong enough. I had started to put it down to the fact that I was a girl, and that naturally I was weaker than the guys and so naturally I would struggle along behind them…

But not so! I am feeling good again, and have pretty much kicked the general weakness. It has been a tough couple of days cycling at altitude. Yesterday we finished just short of 90 km at 2400 meters. And they weren’t too conservative in dishing out the hills.

Ethiopia comes in folds, with seemingly innocent rises hiding the endless climbs behind them. The beauty of the climb is the exhilarating free-fall down the other side, whose enjoyment is marred only by the fact that in Ethiopia what goes down must come up… and up we go! We have been cycling at 2400 meters for the last week or so… this makes for tougher cycling.

We stayed in Debra Markos last night. It is not a particularly interesting spot, but a larger town which boasts mixed juices (avocado and mango juice – ah wow), macchiato (Ethiopia is renowned for its coffee and, when it doesn’t come with pork milk, this is the best caffeine kick they offer) and a few decent hotels – all we need for a solid night’s rest.